Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Book research citations

I started this project in response to my adjunct faculty teaching experience at UNLV and our community college, along with my experience during that time as a textbook manuscript reviewer for Allyn & Bacon/Longman. I quickly found I had to write a lot of my own ancillary classroom material to "fill in the blanks" and to provide relevant topical material that went beyond the text and standard syllabus. As a manuscript reviewer, it became evident in short order that these professor/authors were all mainly writing to impress each other -- such was/is the imperative of passing "peer review." Whether the material would be of interest or utility to students was a secondary concern.

I think I can add something new, a different and interesting and useful perspective. We shall see.

The hardcopy grist of my research readings, in no particular order (other than updated as accrued over time):

You, Inc.: The Art of Selling Yourself

Damned Lies and Statistics: Untangling Numbers from the Media, Politicians, and Activists

More Damned Lies and Statistics: How Numbers Confuse Public Issues

Think: A Compelling Introduction to Philosophy

Being Good: A Short Introduction to Ethics

Asking the Right Questions: A Guide to Critical Thinking

On Being Certain: Believing You Are Right Even When You're Not

Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion

Introduction to logic

Ethical Argument: Critical Thinking in Ethics

Descartes' Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain

Six Thinking Hats: An essential approach to business management

Change or Die: The Three Keys to Change at Work and in Life

Critical Thinking: An Introduction

Beyond Reason: Using Emotions as You Negotiate

Understanding Arguments: An Introduction to Informal Logic

On Bullshit

On Truth

Changing Minds: The Art and Science of Changing Our Own and Other People's Minds

How We Know What Isn't So: The Fallibility of Human Reason in Everyday Life

Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ

Social Intelligence: The New Science of Human Relationships

How Doctors Think

Overdosed America: The Broken Promise of American Medicine

The Flight from Science and Reason

Rational Choice in an Uncertain World: The Psychology of Judgement and Decision Making

Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die

Critical thinking: The analysis of arguments

The psychology of law: Integrations and applications

Galileo's Revenge: Junk Science In The Courtroom

Critical Thinking: An Introduction to the Basic Skills

Einstein: His Life and Universe

Foundations of Critical Thinking

Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases

Choices, Values, and Frames

Sources of Power: How People Make Decisions

The Power of Intuition: How to Use Your Gut Feelings to Make Better Decisions at Work

Inside the Brain: Revolutionary Discoveries of How the Mind Works

Persuasion: The Art of Getting What You Want

Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything

Being Logical: A Guide to Good Thinking

Critical Thinking

A Civil Tongue

Introduction to the Philosophy of Science

The Psychology of Judgment and Decision Making

The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less

How to Argue & Win Every Time

The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many Are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies and Nations

Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in the Markets and Life

The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable

Envisioning Information

Visual Explanations: Images and Quantities, Evidence and Narrative

The Visual Display of Quantitative Information

Winning Every Time: How to Use the Skills of a Lawyer in the Trials of Your Life

The Marriage of Sense and Soul: Integrating Science and Religion

Sway: The irrestistible pull of irrational behavior

How We Decide

Judgment and Decision Making: psychological perspectives

Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness

Stat Spotting: a field guide to identifying dubious data

Predictably Irrational: the hidden forces that shape our decisions

Switch: how to change things when change is hard

Presentation Zen: Simple Ideas on Presentation Design and Delivery

Being Wrong: adventures in the margin of error (Wow, what a find this was!)

The Upside of Irrationality

On Second Thought

Sleights of Mind

The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs: How to be Insanely Great in Front of Any Audience

I would ask my students, "If, when it's all said and done, your evidence and logic are rock-solid, but you change no minds, what have you truly accomplished? We have more issues to resolve constructively than we have hours in the day. So, we do well to become persuasive communicators, but ones that can effectively sell the TRUTH."

I have long been an avid student of cognition, with special interests in persuasion psychology (e.g., thinking like advertisers and trial lawyers), and the cognitive attributes and liabilities of "expertise" (e.g., thinking like doctors or scientists).

I hope I can add value to the popular and undergrad literature. I will do my best.___